Art of making metal sheets.



E. NORTON.

ART OF MAKING METAL SHEETS.

I APPLICATION FILED 001*. 20, 1911.

1,108,213. Patented Aug. 25, 1914 lllllllllllllllll|Illllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll llllllillllllllllilllllllllIIIIIIIIIIH [Ill II H II HIHI H H U H UHHH HHHHIIH H H-Hll HIIIIIHI call .5126

SHEARS WITNESSES: INVENTOR ATTORNEY UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

EDWIN NORTON, OF NEW YORK, N. Y.

ART OF MAKING METAL SHEETS.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Aug. 25, 1914.

Application filed October 20, 1911. Serial No. 655,686.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, EDWIN NoR roN, a citizen of the United States, residing in'New York city, in the county and State of New York, have invented or discovered new and useful Improvements in the Art of Making Metal Sheets, of which the following is a specification.

My invention relates to the art of rolling thin wide sheets of steel, such as are used for making tin plate, galvanized steel sheets, or other purposes for which thin sheets of steel are required.

My invention relates to the rolling of very thin steel sheets for tinning or gal-.

cost for labor and fuel. In addition to these disadvantages, there is one still more important disadvantage in the present method of rolling very thin sheets, and this is that it is quite im ossible to roll tin plate ot a uniform thickness, there being a great var1ation due to the irregular flow of the metal when piled in packs.

The purpose of my invention 1s to perform all the steps of maln'ng the thinnest forms of sheet steel without piling it in packs, that is, it is rolled in a single thickness from the ingot or slab to the finlshed product whereby the sheets are made of uniform thickness, all the labor incident to the pack-rolling system is eliminated, all pack and pair urnaces and the several reheatings are dispensed with, and the finished sheet in very long lengths is produced at a greatly reduced cost.

Referring to the accompanying drawmg, which is a diagrammatic plan of an apparatus for the practice of my invention, 1 represents a plate mill for rolling a heated ingot or slab of steel to an approximate table 4. The rolls of the hot-mill are so connected by the system of gearing 15, that the consecutive stands of rolls rotate at a slightly greater speed counting from the feeding-in section of the tables 4. The sheets are delivered from the hot-mills 5 to conveyers or tables 6, which are preferably pneumatic conveyers of the type shown in United States Letters Patent No. 898,7 7 5.

At each side of the hot-mills 5 is a dupli cate train of cold rolls 8, constituting a cold-mill. The rolls of each duplicate train are connected by the system of gears 16 so that the speed of the stands of rolls increases in succession counting from the feeding-in tables 7 to which the sheets are delivered from the conveyers 6. In the cold mill the sheets are reduced to approximately of an inch in thickness.

The sheets are delivered from the cold mills 8 to the coilers 9, by which the sheets are rolled or wound into rolls or coils for convenience in the succeeding operations of annealing, pickling, or coating, as desired.

I have shown the engine 11 for driving the plate-mill 1; the motors 10 for driving the cold-mills 8; and the engine 12 for driv-' ing the hot-mills 5.

It is seen that by a continuous process I reduce a heated ingot or slab of steel to the desired width and thickness in a plate mill; shear the rolled plate into convenient lengths; deliver the sheared plates singly while yet hot to continuous trains of reducing rolls; deliver the long sheets produced by the continuous trains to trains of cold rolls, in which they are still further reduced in thickness; and coil the reduced sheets into rolls for further treatment.

VVhile my invention may employ only a single train of hot-rolls and cold-rolls, I

prefer to employ the number of mills shown.

which the said lengths are further reduced in thickness while yet hot. I immediately deliver sheets from the hot-rolls as soon as possible singly to as many trains of coldrolls as may be necessary to take care of steel is caused to flow backward and thereby avoid the hardening of the steel that would occur if rolled cold and hot in the same direction.

I have arranged 'each of the duplicate trains of mills so as to be driven by a single engine or motor, each mill of a duplicate train being coupled to opposite ends of a series of shafts provided with the gears 16, which cause each of the trains to perform the same functionand which cause the rolls of each successive set of rolls to run faster, as 'hereinbefore" stated, towit, reduce the metal between each of the successive rollpasses and keep the sheet stretched between the said roll-passes.

I clain1 1. In the continuous manufacture of thin sheet metal, reducing the heated ingot or slab to a long thin sheet, shearing the sheet into lengths, delivering the sheared. sheets in single lengths alternately to ditferent trains of tandem hot reducing rolls having a sixthcient number of stands to complete the hot rolling at a single pass and simultaneously stretching the sheets between the roll passes to prevent their looping or buckling, and finally delivering the thin single sheets from which. the heat has been extracted by the previous step into sufficient number of trains of cold rolls to consecutively and continuously finish the single sheets to the desired gage.

2. In the manufacture of thin sheet metal, reducing a heated slab' or ingot'to a long thin plate, shearing the plate into a plurality of plates while hot, reducing the plates while hot in a plurality of mills to long thin sheets, and then reducing the sheets in a plurality of cold mills, the sheets being passed through the cold mills in a direction opposite that given in plate-reducing mills, thereby causing the metal to flow in the cold mills opposite to its flow in the plate-reducing rolls.

' 3. In the continuous manufacture of thin sheet metal, reducing the heated ingot or slab to a long thin sheet, shearing the sheet into lengths, and delivering the sheared sheets in single lengths to different trains of tandem hot reducing rolls having a sufficient number of stands to complete the hot rolling at a single pass and simultaneously stretching the sheets between the roll passes to prevent their looping or buckling.

Signed at Pittsburgh, Pa, this 18th day of October, A. D. 1911.

EDI/VIN NORTON.

\Vitnesses:

Amen E. DUFF, F. N. BARBER. 

